Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said on an Albany public radio show Thursday that she “can’t imagine” there won’t be bipartisan support for a bill to strengthen New York’s abortion laws, which she views as a simple “updating” of state statutes to reflect federal standards.

Stewart-Cousins, who is the first woman to lead a legislative conference in Albany, has sponsored the Reproductive Health Act in recent years, a bill that supporters argue codifies in state law the 1973 landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Conservatives and the Catholic church staunchly oppose the bill, arguing it will increase access in a state that already leads the nation in abortions.